


locks like the raven

by hudders-and-hiddles (LeslieWrites)



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Episode: s07e10 Happy Holidays, First Footing, Fluff, Husbands, M/M, New Year's Eve, POV David Rose, Post-Canon, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29247054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeslieWrites/pseuds/hudders-and-hiddles
Summary: First footing:The tradition of a tall, dark-haired man being the first person of the year to cross a home’s threshold, carrying symbolic gifts that bring luck and prosperity for the coming year
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 49
Kudos: 138
Collections: Schitt's Creek Season 7





	locks like the raven

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCSeason7](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCSeason7) collection. 



> I claimed the generic prompt on this one, so I could write about this [old Scottish tradition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-foot) that's perfectly suited to David and Patrick's first New Year's Eve in their new house. The title should be obvious in its connection and technically is from a poem called ["John Anderson my jo, John" by Scottish poet Robert Burns](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50357/john-anderson-my-jo-john).
> 
> Thanks to my cheerleader and ever-patient beta, [Claire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cromarty/pseuds/cromarty).

David shivers as the wind licks down inside the collar of his coat. It isn’t snowing at least, for the first night this week, but there’s still plenty of it looming along the edges of the driveway, a threat to his suede Jodhpur boots, and he gives a stern side-eye to the few flakes that kick up and dare to dance across the pavement.

“Remind me why we’re outside in the cold a full fifteen minutes before midnight.”

Patrick squeezes him tighter, drawing David’s attention back as he puffs his response into David’s shoulder. “We’re not starting the year off with bad luck, David. You know that since you’re the one here with dark hair, you have to be the first person to set foot in the house—”

“No, that part I’m clear on.” His hands gesture uselessly where they’re tucked between the wool layers of Patrick’s sweater and coat, fingers brushing up against the warm, bare skin of his back where the movement accidentally rucks his sweater up a little. “I just don’t know why we couldn’t have waited until 11:59 to send me out here to be the frozen sacrificial lamb.”

The pulled back chin, raised brow look that Patrick gives him says they both already know the answer to that question.

“So I have to suffer just because you’re always responsibly early?”

“Oh, are you suffering right now? I didn’t realize hugging your husband was such a burden.” He starts to unwind himself from around David’s waist, but David pouts and curls his fingers stubbornly through the belt loops of Patrick’s jeans until he gives in and wraps him up again, smirking. 

“You should be nicer to me,” David mumbles into the hair at Patrick’s temple. “You know how traumatic it was when James McAvoy’s sister—”

“Sent you out to be the first-foot for Hogmanay 2007 and ‘forgot’ to let you back in, I know.” His broad hands stroke up and down David’s back soothingly. “But unless Stevie has skipped out on her hot springs holiday or you’ve decided to let Jake host tonight’s festivities in our living room, there’s no one in there to lock you out. Plus, you have a key.”

David laughs, his breath curling off into the darkness. “I don’t know if I could find it among the sixteen other things in my pockets right now though.”

“What did you end up putting in there anyway?” He wriggles a little, as if he could somehow feel out what’s in David’s coat pockets with just the press of his hips.

“I’ve got a loonie, a tube of Smarties, a tin of that everything bagel seasoning you’ve been hoarding like it’s gold, um… a tealight, your flask, lube—”

“Ooh, sexy.” Patrick wriggles some more, and David tries to smother the little jolt of heat that flares up inside him.

“Hush, you. Hand sanitizer, lip balm, my phone—”

“Now you’re just listing what’s always in your pockets.”

“I can’t help it if I’m always prepared.”

Patrick grins. “I married a boy scout.”

David’s laugh is clear and long, his shoulders shaking with it. “Well that’s definitely something no one has ever accused me of before.”

“A shame,” Patrick teases. “You’d look so good in a neckerchief.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“You look good in everything, David.” He drags a kiss against the underside of David’s jaw. “But if you’d rather go a different route, I’m sure I could think of a few merit badges you could earn instead.”

It’s a truly ridiculous line and it shouldn’t work anywhere near as well as it does, but Patrick’s eyes are sparkling and his fingers are digging into the backs of David’s hips and his mouth is _right there_. What choice does David have but to dip down and taste the laughter on his husband’s lips?

“For the record,” he says when he’s gotten his fill for now—because now that he’s started the list, it seems important to finish it—“I’ve also got a coffee bean, a coaster from the motel, one of Alexis’s business cards, that article from _Variety_ about the _Sunrise Bay_ reboot, the picture of us with your parents at the wedding, a baseball, and a receipt from work.”

“Oh, so that _is_ a baseball in your pocket, and you’re not just happy to see me.” His smile is so bright David has to close his eyes against it, shaking his head.

“Last time I checked, I did not get erections on my hip.”

“No, just mine.”

The guffaw that comes out of David’s mouth is a sound he’ll deny until his dying day, but Patrick lights up at it, pulling him in for another round of kisses, this time all hot swirls of tongue and roving fingers seeking out skin and little moans lost in the creak and sway of the tree branches stretched overhead. If anyone were to see them like this, lost in each other’s arms, David’s sure it would be a nauseating image, but fortunately for their nearest neighbors, the trees and a fence and nearly a kilometer of open field separate them from each other, and fortunately for David, he stopped being so afraid of people seeing him openly in love with this man somewhere around _I’m stuck on your heart_. 

Still, the tiny, responsible, no-fun part of his brain recognizes that they probably shouldn’t take things any further out here on their driveway, no matter how far away their neighbors might be, and David reluctantly tempers things back into something decidedly more PG. 

When the hem of Patrick’s sweater is back in place and David’s coat collar and hair have been smoothed, he manages to find his phone amongst all the things in his pocket and drags it out to check the time. Two minutes to go.

“You actually meant sixteen literally then.” 

David would be more offended that apparently his husband was double-checking his math while they were making out, but that statement took long enough to arrive that he’s flattered instead. “Numbers don’t lie,” he replies loftily.

“You know, that’s not exactly what I mean when I say that, but fair enough.” As soon as he’s tucked away his phone again, Patrick threads their fingers together, his wedding ring unyielding where it’s squeezed between two of David’s engagement rings. “So money, food, spice, warmth, cheer—all traditional. The lube is pretty straightforward. The hand sanitizer represents…?”

“Good health, obviously. Kisses. Communication.” David ticks each item off on his free hand. “Caffeine. A successful year for our families, your baseball team, and the store.”

Patrick gives him one of those wide-eyed, overly-earnest looks, the kind that always threatens to swallow David whole. “You took this really seriously.”

“Of course I did. It’s important to you.” First-footing is not a custom David’s ever had, nor really wanted thanks to Joy locking him out of her Glaswegian flat, but it’s Patrick’s long-held family tradition, passed down from Clint’s Scottish great-great-grandmother, which means now it’s David’s tradition, too. “It’s important to _us_.”

“Thank you.” Patrick leans over for another kiss, soft and slow and lingering, their last kiss of the year, and when his phone chirps in his pocket, it becomes their first of the new one, too.

“Happy New Year, David.”

“Happy New Year, Patrick.”

They don’t even make it inside before they’re kissing again, want surging back up between them as they tumble toward the house. They trip over the front step and Patrick spins David around to pin him right up against the door, crowding in with a smirk that sets his heart drumming.

Heat bleeds through the layers between them, and David spreads his legs a little, lets Patrick press in even closer, which he takes full advantage of by licking at the hollow of David’s throat. It’s the nip at his adam’s apple though that makes his knees tremble, and Patrick’s hands steady on his hips squeeze harder to keep him upright. 

“Open the door already,” he breathes into the curve of David’s neck. “We’re starting this year off with far too many clothes on.”

“You’re the one who insisted on this!” he argues, though the effect is ruined by the whine that leaks from his throat as Patrick’s mouth finds his earlobe. “If it were up to me, we’d already be naked.”

Patrick gasps, scandalized, though the way he keeps rocking into the vee of David’s hips tells another story. “Right out here on the lawn, David? What will the neighbors think?” 

“That we’re two newlyweds, madly in love and unable to keep our hands off of each other?”

Two sturdy, thick-fingered hands slip up beneath his sweater, proving his point, and Patrick grins. “Mmm, they’d be right.”

From there it’s panting breaths and fingers in hair, Patrick desperately hiking David’s leg up around his hip, blood breaking beneath their skin in marks that make David glad the store is closed tomorrow. They don’t take it quite as far as they could, but near enough, and it’s ten minutes after midnight before they get the door open, David barely crossing the threshold first as he drags sixteen items, all their good wishes for the year, the cold air, and his flushed, gasping, sweaty, gorgeous, mess of a husband in after him and up to their bedroom.

It’s not quite the way the tradition is supposed to be carried out, David thinks, but it’s one he could definitely get used to.


End file.
